Houston’s red-light cameras gone, but fines and headaches aren’t

UPDATE: This afternoon, Thursday, May 17, The Houston Advocate received this response from the Mayor Annise Parker’s Press Secretary, Jessica Michan, by way of the city’s finance and legal departments:

The deadline to timely contest expired approximately 55 days after the Original Due Date. Any evidence or request for hearing submitted after that deadline is not timely, and regardless of whether it would have been otherwise sufficient, is of no legal effect.

The statute provides that failure to timely pay the civil penalty, contest liability by affidavit or declaration or submit a written request for hearing is considered an admission of liability and a waiver of any right to appeal the imposition of the penalty. No one, not the Municipal Courts, HPD, the City Attorney or anyone else in the City has legal authority to change the outcome of these facts and the law after the original deadline for timely contest passes. Of course, that is still the case today, and penalties and fines are assessed to the owner whose name appears in the official registration records of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.

Looks like the lack of checking on his timely protest and having the offending vehicle still registered in his name, still results in a fine for Scott Robinson.

ORIGINAL POST: Though red-light cameras in the city of Houston have been shut down, some folks are still dealing with fines.

When the Houston City Council voted last August to end the program, there were more than 265,000 outstanding violation notices worth about $25 million. The cameras operated from the program’s inception in September 2006 through the camera ban referendum approved by voters in November 2010, and then for another few weeks last year in July and August.

That background brings The Houston Advocate to another taxpayer’s beef with a government authority over roadways.

This time it’s Scott Robinson questioning a $75 red-light citation he received for an October 2007 violation at Richmond and Hillcroft.

Trouble is, he traded the Hyundai Santa Fe ticketed in July 2007, according to a bill of sale from the out-of-business Ernie Guzman Hyundai in Rosenberg. The car still had his license plates in October 2007 because, Robinson said, the dealer didn’t process everything correctly.

Robinson said he sent documentation to the violation’s Cincinnati address by the deadline to prove he no longer owned the car in October 2007, but received a response a couple of months later from a law firm stating that he now owed $100 (the amount included a $25 collection fee) for failing to make a timely protest or payment.

More recently, he received what he describes as a “strong-arm letter” imploring him to pay or have the outstanding debt reported to a credit agency.

“If you pay the ticket, you’re pleading guilty, so I’m being forced to plead guilty to something I had no involvement in,” Robinson said. “I could have mailed the stuff the day after I received it and I still wouldn’t have had any way to know that they recorded it properly until I got the letter from the law firm.”

And he’s not optimistic about a dismissal more than four years later.

When I looked at his violation online, there’s this explanation about unpaid fines:

Q: Didn’t the Red Light Enforcement Camera Program come to an end?

A: Yes, but penalties for violations that occurred before repeal must be paid.

Ordinance No. 2011-748 passed and approved and ordained by the City Council of the City of Houston, Texas, August 24, 2011 states that the provisions of Article XIX of Chapter 45, Photographic Traffic Signal Enforcement Systems are saved from repeal for the limited purpose of their continuing application to any violation of said Article XIX that occurred before November 15, 2010, and during the period July 24 – August 24, 2011. For this purpose, a violation of Article XIX is deemed to have been committed if any element of the violation occurred during the periods defined in this Section. By law, the violation(s) that occurred during these periods are enforceable and must be paid.